The Pink Schoolbag

The other day I sent Ricki downstairs to meet her ride to school. I checked from the window to see that she wasn’t making a detour to the grocery store, and that she crossed the street carefully. Then I went back to the task at hand. A few minutes later, I went again to the window, to see if her ride had arrived. Then I saw IT. A pink schoolbag.
Ricki has somehow gotten hold of a schoolbag which was definitely not hers. I was surprised; people usually don’t leave bags lying around, even if they have to make a quick dash to do something. There is too much risk of someone calling the bomb squad (and the bag getting shot at). But there Ricki was, prancing happily on “her” corner, with a lovely pink schoolbag. I told Ricki to leave it alone, but she was not in the mood to listen. And I knew that if I would go downstairs, Ricki would only run away ahead of me, walking to school on her own. So I called her driver and was about to explain to him NOT to let Ricki enter the car with the bag, that it wasn’t hers. Suddenly the 9 year-old owner of the bag turned up, extracted her possessions from Ricki (who readily returned it), and walked off to school. (Bet she doesn’t leave her bag lying around in the future…..)